POLL – German history movie

See you when you get there 2
Originally uploaded by movski /
Michał Orłowski, Stargard, Poland

Actual in German cinemas: the movie POLL, featuring the year 1914 with German racism, Russian troops, anarchists from Estonia and a beautiful young girl trying to overcome the political madness entering the world of love. The film-makers built an absurd, nearly surreal wooden architecture into the water of the Baltic Sea remembering the attitude of the movie Fitzcarraldo with Klaus Kinski. That paradoxical temple of wood is much, much larger than this cosy pavilion, portrayed by the flickr-photographer movski, Michał Orłowski, Stargard, Poland. That building is reality in Poland near Stargard. I would like to visit that so much. My mother lived there as a young girl. But she had to leave her home, when World War II. started. So, as a German, I fea, thatr I am not welcome there, when I’ll try to find my roots in Poland, as a German …

P.S.:

I am pleased, that this movie, looking back to the days, when World War I. began, is critical against German ideologies. We watched in a little alternative cinema-room in Bochum, Casablanca, this movie – and on the same day that bad spectacle about the Zeppelin Hindenburg filled the prime time of the TV-channel RTL. The very silly Zeppelin film still adores the stupid technical intelligence, supporting mad Third Reich nationalism. But the movie POLL criticizes the German biological science drifting into racism, measuring heads. The main character, played by the German actor Edgar Selge, is a doctor who plans his university career with horrible engagement. All we are satisfied, that he fails completely. He and his conception is to blame. Other German movies, adoring Zeppelin or Wernher von Braun‘s V2-rocket, the architecture of Albert Speer or the first jet airplane built by Messerschmitt Messerschmitt_Me_262 are not as wise as this little simple movie POLL, located around a wooden architecture in the water of the Baltic Sea. The film crew destroyed the wonderful architecture, when work was done. So I used the picture of a pavilion you still can visit in a country, where the Germans have been sent away too: Poland. The script of POLL is based on historical events. That German racist Professor made suicide 1918 in Berlin, his wife ended 1914 as a political prisoner in Russia, his son was killed as a soldier 1915, – but his daughter, the teenager (played by wonderful actress Paule Beer) who tried to make LOVE the strongest factor in this world of ideologies and hate: she survived as a writer. That’s the reason, why director Chris Krause could make this movie: A look upon German history maybe as good as Doctor_Zhivago_(film) as a look upon Russian history – but Poll has more silence, intimacy, peace, doubt …

more about this movie movie (German language):
http://www.moviemaster.de/archiv/film/film_poll-2010.htm Chris Kraus, 2010
more about the director Chris Kraus:
http://www.moviemaster.de/archiv/film/film_vier-minuten-2006.htm Chris Kraus, 2006
http://www.moviemaster.de/archiv/film/film_scherbentanz-2002.htm Chris Kraus, 2002

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Cover of Fitzcarraldo

other related links:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo
• https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/zeppelin/
• https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/wernher-von-braun/
• https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/progress/
• https://flickrcomments.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/eichinger/

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About Didi van Frits

writer, photographer, guitarist, painter

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